Beyoncé explains why she stopped making music videos
Beyoncé has yet to release any music videos for her acclaimed ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Cowboy Carter’ albums – find out why below.
Despite the success of ‘Renaissance’ and ‘Cowboy Carter’, and by extension the numerous hits they’ve spawned’, Beyoncé has purposefully not made any music videos to support the records. Now, the singer has revealed in a new chat with GQ about the thought process behind her decision.
Beyoncé began on the topic: “I thought it was important that during a time where all we see is visuals, that the world can focus on the voice. The music is so rich in history and instrumentation. It takes months to digest, research, and understand. The music needed space to breathe on its own.”
She continued: “Sometimes a visual can be a distraction from the quality of the voice and the music. The years of hard work and detail put into an album that takes over four years! The music is enough. The fans from all over the world became the visual. We all got the visual on tour. We then got more visuals from my film.”
Beyoncé is perhaps known for some of the most iconic music videos in history – from the choreography led ‘Single Ladies’, that led to Kanye West’s infamous outburst at the MTV VMAs in 2009 when she didn’t win the award for best video – to ‘Formation’ and countless others.
Arriving at the start of 2024, Bey took over the album charts and made countless headlines for the huge success of her country-inspired record ‘Cowboy Carter’.
It also hit some huge milestones in the genre, including making Beyoncé the first Black woman to reach Number One on the US country chart with ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’, the first Black woman to score a Number One country album in the US charts, and gathering support from huge names including Michelle Obama and Paul McCartney.
However, despite these accolades, the record has been snubbed at the 2024 CMAs, not receiving any nominations in any categories.
Following the initial release of ‘Cowboy Carter’, the singer shared a remix of ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’, and revealed that she kept much of the original backing track from the original 1968 version of ‘Blackbird’ in her cover. She also confirmed that Stevie Wonder played harmonica on ‘Jolene’, and RAYE was credited as a co-writer on one ‘Cowboy Carter’ song.
‘Cowboy Carter’ was given a five-star review by NME, which read: “In the age of stan culture, sceptics will argue that objective criticism of Beyoncé can feel hard to come by. Those who don’t already love country may find some of ‘Cowboy Carter’s balladeering sections to be a little long, or query whether an artist of Beyoncé’s stature is invoking certain ironies when she rallies her audience to “stand for something”, given her own relative quiet on recent political affairs.
“But even if interpreted only on the grounds of artistic spectacle, it’s an undeniable thrill to see her swing so big on a project that dares her to be so intimate and vocal-focused, while making way for country’s up-and-comers too.”
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Surej Singh
NME
